The present invention relates to the conveying of crops especially, but not exclusively, grasses, and provides an improved apparatus for and method of picking up and conveying cut crop.
In some cases the use of apparatus embodying the present invention may produce a treatment of crop which is generally known as conditioning, and various references are made in this specification to conditioning of crop.
The speed at which surface and sap moisture evaporate from cut crop during field exposure depends inter alia on the physical condition of the crop. The principal barrier to moisture loss is the cuticle and the layer of epicuticular wax on the crop surface, and it is now common practice in agriculture to mechanically treat the crop in order to damage this barrier. Such mechanical treatment, which may take the form of crushing, lacerating, bruising, splitting, bending or scuffing the stem and leaves of the crop, is known as "conditioning".
In the specification of our British Patent No. 2041713, from which the present application is divided, the conditioning of crops is more fully described, and there are claimed improved apparatus for and methods of conditioning crop in accordance with the invention of that patent.
However, the present invention is directed to improved apparatus for and methods of picking up and conveying crop, whether or not conditioning of the crop also takes place.